Alyssa

“The final straw came when she finally unburdened herself to her mother, who had survived an abusive marriage to Carolyn’s father. “She said, ‘That sounds just like my marriage.’ That’s the day I knew I had to leave, because I could see years down the line, my daughter calling me crying about her marriage and me saying the same thing. I had to get out.”
― Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

“If madness is the mark of female singleness, the delirium is spreading. The percentage of married women across all races is decreasing.6 Despite this shift, society’s views on women and marriage have hardly changed since the Irish essayist George Bernard Shaw wrote, at the start of the twentieth century: “It is a woman’s business to get married as soon as possible, and a man’s to keep unmarried as long as possible.”7 Singleness and its associated freedoms are viewed as a man’s game. And a woman without a wedding band, or at the very least an adoring male partner to signal her worthiness, is to be viewed as warily as a steak without a USDA stamp—something must be rotten there.”
― Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

“Hair has been a lightning rod for enforcement of White standards of beauty. And reactions to Black women’s natural hair help illustrate the broader disdain for Black appearance. While Black hair can have a variety of textures, most tends to be curly, coily, or nappy. It grows out and up and not down. It may not shine. It may be cottony or wiry. It is likely more easily styled in an Afro puff than a smooth chignon. For centuries, Black women have been told that these qualities make their hair unsightly, unprofessional, and uniquely difficult to manage.”
― Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America

“Most children in single-parent families grow up just fine, and it is still unclear how much of the disadvantages to children are caused by poverty or family structure or whether marriage itself makes the difference or the type of people who commonly marry. Demonizing single Black motherhood does not improve the lives of children. On the contrary, the idea that 70 percent of Black boys and girls are congenitally damaged stigmatizes them.”
― Tamara Winfrey Harris, The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America